Half painted Fw 190 wing undersides - the purpose?

[Don Neibling]

Hello Kari,
One reason may be that at that late stage of the war it was more important to save time and resources. It was probably thought that it was more importent that the aircraft be better camouflaged on the ground than in the air. Filling and rubbing back imperfections is a very time consuming job and would add greatly to construction time.
Kindest regards,
Don.

[George Hopp]

I would go with your hypothesis that the metal surfaces were becoming so poor that a coat of paint (perhaps with filler, perhaps not) was put over the leading edge of the wing to smooth the airflow over that part of the wing.

The Me 262 also got that treatment, ie. some paint on the leading edge of the wing, but with most of the underwing left unpainted.

Interestingly enough, in a report comparing wing structures on Allied and German a/c, the leading edge slats on the 109 were criticized, as were the larger rivets on German a/c. They needed more effort to insert, and caused surface buckling.